New deputy mayor promises to ‘move the needle' on affordable housing

Newly appointed Deputy Mayor Vicki Been promised to energize the city's efforts to create and preserve affordable apartments, arrest the decline of public housing and challenge policies that have contributed to the housing crisis and economic inequality.

"I'm here to move the needle," Been said Thursday morning at a news conference, flanked by Mayor Bill de Blasio. "I didn't take the job just to stay the course. I want to take it up a notch."

Been appeared to concede that the housing policies of de Blasio's administration, such as mandatory inclusionary housing, which grants development projects added bulk in exchange for affordable units, have fallen short of accommodating the city's poorest residents.

Although mandatory inclusionary housing has spurred the construction of thousands of affordable housing units, many of them are geared for renters with an annual income of $87,000 or more.

"I took this position because the mayor and I see eye to eye about the need to go deeper, to push further to meet the needs of those most vulnerable New Yorkers," Been said. "We raised the bar in 2014 in pledging to make many more of our subsidized homes more affordable to those with extremely low and very low incomes. It wasn't enough. The mayor … raised the bar again in 2017, but it still isn't enough. We need to raise the bar again."

Been, who officially assumes the deputy mayor role May 6, said the city should challenge state rules that are up for renewal in June that govern the city's rent regulations. Housing advocates say landlords exploit the system to pull units out of regulation and raise rents.

"Rent regulation is up for reform in Albany," Been said. "It's a once-in-a-generation chance to end failed policies, like the current vacancy decontrol rules, and to stop the irrevocable loss of those precious rent-stabilized units."

Been was commissioner of the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development during de Blasio's first mayoral term. She left that role in 2017 to return to New York University, where she was a professor at the law school, an affiliated professor of public policy at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and faculty director at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

As part of her new role, she plans to work to revive the New York City Housing Authority.

"Vicki will be a central architect of all we do from this point forward to turn around NYCHA," de Blasio said. "The residents of public housing deserve a lot better. And for the first time in decades, there's a plan in place to achieve that change."

Been, who grew up in a small mining town in Colorado, said she could relate to the need for affordable housing because of the role it played in her own journey from an impoverished childhood to a prominent career in government and academia.

She was able to take an internship that brought her to the city as a young adult only because she was able to find a room at an all-women boarding house at West 34th Street and Ninth Avenue, where she paid $50 a month, she said.

"That was what allowed me to come here, to have this incredibly rewarding career," Been said. "I want all New Yorkers to have that kind of experience—to look back on the city as a place that allowed them to make the kind of life that they wanted to make."

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